Category Archives: Blog

Street artist “Banksy” was arrested after a sting operation in which cops waited outside of his studio and followed him to the location.

Not only is he facing a slew of criminal charges, including counterfeiting, but his long-standing anonymity has been unveiled.

While revealing his identity to the public might have taken away some of his mystique, it says more that the authorities are taking away his privacy.

I want to know, what business, what shop owner, actually complained to the police that an internationally recognized artist volunteered work on their space? Are the police just so bored and overfunded that they have not much better to do? Do they take his political commentary as a personal affront?

Whatever the case may be, yet another nonviolent “offender” is off the streets, or, more specifically, on the court’s financial books.

In his interview, Banksy raises the point that marketers and advertisements are encouraged to make money by filling our public, visual, and psychic spaces with their peddling. But, once we take control, manipulate the world in the ways we see fit, then it is a crime.

I suppose that distressing reflection and satire is best left walled up in museums. No, the streets are for pushy commercialization and fad fetishes. The message is loud and clear, Banksy. This is their turf.

Money and I have an odd relationship. I never want to have to deal with it, but I’m always left needing more. I’ve never been great at handling my own money, and I’m always ever-so-willing to offer my art for free.

So something must be done. I’d be perfectly happy living the life of the impoverished artist if it wasn’t for the fact that living a comfortable life is a part of my happiness. It seems that, in my situation, the only way to not be concerned about money would be to have quite a lot of it.

But I could never see at as a virtuous thing just to have money. It is not an end-in-itself, not an ultimate goal. I do not look at people in a life of luxury and think “I wish I had that” and “I’m going to work as very-hard as I can to have that thing. Having things is boring. Every time I have a thing it immediately loses its luster. I am not into things, but I am into events.

Having events, or creating them, is costly. Sharing a dinner with a loved one, flying or driving long distances to see friends, even visiting the family, it all claws at the pockets. And maybe it’s my own fault. Maybe it’s fate, or bad luck, or some mechanic of the universe wrenching at my life thinking “once this thing is fixed, it’ll run like a dream.”

It doesn’t really matter. I have, on the whole, exactly what I want. Family, friends, positive and healthy relationships. I am, to be blunt, alive. Most of the time I don’t ask for much more than that. It is, after all, more than most of the human beings that have ever lived have. It keeps me happy.

But then there’s the crossroads, laying down in the middle of the clock with a gargantuan X. “What are you doing with your time.” Or, even more poignantly, “what have you changed in the world.” I want to change the world. Not in some grand, sweeping way. I’m not an open-to-the-public narcissist. I don’t even believe one person can change the world in any significant way (without support of the community).

A ripple. First an idea, it won’t go away. Then an action, with honesty, empathy, and virtue. Executed with humility. A butterfly effect of happiness. Smile at one person on the street, or two. Then they might smile at the bank teller, or say thank you in the perfect time of day to a worn-out cashier. Happiness is exponential.

But to be in the world costs money. Existential amounts of money.

I’ve had friends that have forgotten my name because I didn’t have enough gas to hang out any more. I’ve missed opportunities to experience and share art because I was trying to pull overtime and pay my utility bill.

It’s not a crisis. It’s just how it all starts catching up. Each bill falling one more piece of sand in the hourglass. I’m tired of deserts. I want rain. Not for greed. Not because I’m lazy. I’m just thirsty, I’ve been dancing as long as I can because in that dizzy moment I can sense something on the border of of perfection.

I’ll work hard for it. I’ll give you all I have. I know, in the end, all debts will be paid.

Here’s to life, and in it, freedom. May your Work and Fortune guide you through it.

1. You’re stranded in the middle of the woods, freezing in the snow, with a collection of Jack London’s short stories, and you have no dog.

2. Stephen King signed your copy of Firestarter with a gasoline pen.

3. You confused your copy of Illuminatus Trilogy with a 16th century witch who kept screaming, in the devil’s tongue, Fnord! (another version of 3 might have involved the phrase “auto de fe-fnord”)

4. You believed the collected psychological studies of Wilhelm Reich to be propaganda from the Nazi’s Third Reich (and you were the US government).

5. You were curious if The Order of the Phoenix would, indeed, rise from the ashes.

6. Your father requested to be buried with “Death of a Salesmen.” You couldn’t afford a proper burial.

7. You just finished a cliched, faux-dossier spy novel and chucked it into your pretentious neighbor’s study, hopefully landing it in a stack of Tom Clancy books. (hint: I think this joke self-destructed)

8. You discovered that your copy of Twilight IS allergic to the sun (and a magnifying glass supported by a steady hand!)

9. You ordered a Porno for Pyros CD from Amazon in lascivious haste and became disappointed when you discovered they were a crappy 90s band. In a fit of auto-erotic elation and cosmic irony, you tossed the burning disk onto your father’s old collection of “Penthouse” mags.

10. In an attempt to rival every book-burning fascist in history, you burn more than 10 million books on the Man at Burning Man. Much to your chagrin, it was 10 million copies of The Celestine Prophecy. There was much rejoicing, group sex, and, somewhere in the riotous celebration, a Nobel Peace Prize.